1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to vertical navigation (VNAV) systems for aircraft and more particularly to an integrated barometric altitude and satellite altitude-based system for enhancing aircraft flight management system (FMS) vertical navigation systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Present day FMS VNAV designs lack the capability to support LPV approaches which make use of the FAA's new Wide-Area Augmentation System (WAAS) and/or Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) technologies. The new capability requires use of barometric altitude in the beginning of an aircraft descent with a transition to a satellite altitude-based system for the final approach. However, presently a seamless methodology is lacking for providing this transition. The present invention provides a means to smoothly integrate current baro altitude-based VNAV with GNSS altitude in the intermediate and final approach path vertical deviation computations to support this new capability.